In the typical course of electronic communication, increasing amounts of data are generated, stored and transferred. Additionally, data storage devices such as hard disk drives and solid state storage devices are increasing in both capacity and capability. In particular, the computational capability, as well as programmability, of data storage devices is such that they are capable of processing increasingly complex tasks beyond that of simple data storage and retrieval. Simultaneously, as both devices and the data sets they contain become larger, verification of data integrity and other computational operations associated with stored data, both at a data set and device level, becomes increasingly burdensome upon, for example, data storage systems and/or computer systems that are tasked with performing computations upon the data. These burdens become even more evident when multiple data storage devices are connected to or part of a data storage system with finite computational capacity.